


Something Just Like This

by birdsandivory



Category: Final Fantasy XV, Kingsglaive
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Mental Hospital AU, Mental Instability, Mentions of Suicidal Thoughts, Modern Setting, Pay attention to the tags, This Fic Isn't For Everyone, This Is A Catharsis, asylum AU, lunyx, morbid jokes, self deprecation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-30 04:15:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13942407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdsandivory/pseuds/birdsandivory
Summary: She sighs because it is quiet.And it isn’t, not really, because the roar of the city streets of Insomnia brings the night to life - the muttered whispers of the undulating crowd dies down before it reaches a high-pitched thrum, breaking her bones and slipping through the pulsing doors of her veins. It’s in her body, a foul beast that wishes to break through walls of muscle and sinew, teeth pulling the softness of her flesh from its tether. And if she didn’t have the hold upon her heart that she does, it wouldn’t take much for claws to snap the very heartstrings that held her together. The grotesque shadow that was cast from the rooftop of the facility in which she resided was a loud, shrieking animal in the darkness.But in her mind, she thinks, it is quiet.





	Something Just Like This

**Author's Note:**

> I actually wrote this in this very hour, in one short sitting, as a catharsis - because I feel like my emotions have been a little everywhere lately and I want to get the insanity down on paper and release it into the world with the hopes that things will seem a little better. I do think I have accomplished that, so now that I have given all I have to give for this, I have the wish that you all will enjoy it to a degree.
> 
> I was trying to challenge myself once again with shifts in POVs being separated by abrupt changes in writing style; please, let me know if I’ve accomplished that!

_"Where'd you wanna go, how much you wanna risk?_

_I'm not lookin' for somebody with some superhuman gifts,_

_Some superhero, some fairytale bliss;_

_Just something I can turn to,_

_Somebody I can kiss."_

_\- Something Just Like This, The Chainsmokers Feat. Coldplay_

 

* * *

 

She sighs because it is quiet.

And it isn’t, not really, because the roar of the city streets of Insomnia brings the night to life - the muttered whispers of the undulating crowd dies down before it reaches a high-pitched thrum, breaking her bones and slipping through the pulsing doors of her veins. It’s in her body, a foul beast that wishes to break through walls of muscle and sinew, teeth pulling the softness of her flesh from its tether. And if she didn’t have the hold upon her heart that she does, it wouldn’t take much for claws to snap the very heartstrings that held her together. The grotesque shadow that was cast from the rooftop of the facility in which she resided was a loud, shrieking animal in the darkness.

But in her mind, she thinks, it is quiet.

There is nothing grand about the view of the streetlights, the rows of skyscrapers that corner towering apartment complexes are less than impressive, and the chill of the evening air barely reaches her despite the thin fabric of the gown she’s wearing. Yet, somehow, there is apparently more life in the bustling colossus before her than there is within her own lungs. The thought is frustrating, but all she can do is grit her teeth.

And sigh.

A pair of near silent footsteps indicates the arrival of another patient, one just as she, as crazy and out of sorts as they say - but to her, he is terribly normal. He sits beside her, the braids and long flowing hair that she noticed the first day she had been taken in for examination still looks as soft as it always does, though they removed from him the rubber band and left the twist of locks loose; it is silly, from what she understands, that people deemed intelligent would think he was going to strangle himself with something that would snap before it slipped over his crown.

She supposes he is clever enough to find a way.

After all, they are not meant to be sane in so primeval a place.

“I can’t believe you got fully admitted.  _You._ ” He sounds horribly surprised, but she guesses it is only because of her lineage and family name - not the fact that they spoke on countless occasions with each and every passing week that she failed to pass assessment; the Fleurets are an esteemed household to have in one’s mouth if they wish for status. They are built upon mounds of coin and poise. 

For the only daughter of the soft spoken and kind-hearted Sylva to be…

 _‘That poor woman,’_  she knows they must say.

“They condemned me for the truth, was I supposed to lie?” She speaks as though they are old friends, and perhaps, they are; for she’s never felt a connection so strongly with any one person, but there this man is -  _Nyx Ulric,_  he’d begged - rough around the edges, but as there for her as no one has ever been.

“To go back home? Yeah.”

It is foolish to believe she will ever go home now, or even then; she doesn’t bother to keep such a dream alive, for what is done is done. She thinks quietly of her mother, rolling in her grave, or the look on her brother’s face as they grabbed her arm and decided it was the proper way to pull her away; he was devastated, still is, and she will never forgive herself for leaving him alone.

“Ravus was beside himself. He was so upset - and as my legal guardian, they forced him to sign the paperwork.”

“I could hear him yelling from my spot in the Rec room.”

She did, too. And it is apparent to her that until the moment she had been admitted, not once had she seen her brother so wound; angry, of course. Ravus is an angry man, has always been and always would be - but terrified, in pain, it isn’t like him.

“I was all he had left and now, I will never be there again.”

“It’s a shitty deal, ain’t it?” He looks at her with a smile before gazing out from atop the fenced roof they were upon, legs drawn and arms folded lazily over his knees. He is wistful, lips permanently curled and yet, he isn’t wasting the expression; genuinely, deep down, he is content - even if he doesn’t seem to be. “Whatcha doing out here, anyway? It’s way past curfew; not exactly the best way to start your first night.”

The air tousles her platinum locks in a way that reminds her of her mother’s fingers plucking away at stray strands, only to place them neatly within the shackles of tiny braids. “Just looking out to the city, watching them watch us.”

“They’re watching us, huh?”

Her head turns slowly to find his luminous eyes looking to her, curious and without shame; she allows her own to flutter to a close, inhaling deeply the metallic scent of the old facility. “Of course. We are the show, in the middle of a limitless city with no real walls.”

The man beside her chuckles and she remembers that same laugh from their first introduction, her asking his name somehow bringing about laughter, skeptical - as if he cannot believe she asks questions. “You make it sound so pointless.”

“They chain us because they believe our minds are compromised. We live within a prison, doing nothing but living day by day. Is there nothing more meaningless?”

A hand reaches up to rub at a shaven chin and she wonders if he mourns the loss of his facial hair, being taken for grooming religiously each month without permission. His eyes are alight with something she doesn’t understand, but she only finds it intriguing, never confusing - even when he ends the moment of insightfulness and gently nudges the arm keeping her vertical along the brickstone. “Not if I’m here to talk to.”

“You sound like you wish to save me from loneliness.”

And, maybe, he does.

He does not sigh, nor does he brood, only observes because it is what he is meant to do - the only thing there  _is_  to do. He watches every single patient he’s met since the day he was admitted over a decade ago with great interest and care, because he’s known nothing else but the white walls of a white chamber for so long, he forgets what the outside looks like some days. He watches  _her_  because she’s sad and doesn’t know it, because she’s lonely, and he knows this for a fact despite the way she wants to seem like she has it together.

They both know that she doesn’t.

He is there because of voices that speak to him, voices of ages long past, urging him to fight battles that aren’t quite there - or at least, no one believes they are. And he knows, he _knows_  he can help it - can  _probably_  help it - but he doesn’t, because he can’t stand to fight more fights than the fights he already endures first thing in the morning when he gets up to brush his teeth.

But then, there’s the woman next to him -  _Lunafreya_  - who never fights the demons, never needs to, because she is what the demons are fighting  _for_  and he believes that  _she_  can save him; he knows she will save him, because as he sits there beside her, she’s healing and silencing every talon to crippled flesh he’s ever had the displeasure of screaming in the night against.

And she thinks he wants to save her?

“So, what did you tell them that landed you here?” He changes the subject because it’s easy and he doesn’t care for anything that’s more than a little complicated, especially on nights like these, but also because he never asked - and asking is the right thing to do, isn’t it?

“...I told them that I am the princess of Tenebrae.” Her voice is a quiet chant, at first, and he only becomes more interested in her story as it grows into a confident hum. “I told them I know this, but they...they do not believe me.”

“Tenebrae?” He tests the old name upon his tongue and it tastes like the high school textbooks he never bothered to read, of fairytales told when he sat in a circle upon a brightly printed carpet with his oldest friend some thirty years ago. “Ain’t that a lost city?”

“Dead, not lost.” Her words are clipped, but when he looks at her, she doesn’t seem to be angry; there is no malice in her voice as he catches her azure gaze, watching as it rolls to the blinding traffic lights still running because people who are free don’t have a curfew. She doesn’t speak for a long while either, and he thinks it’s because she’s dwelling too much as his fingers catch a loose pebble in the grout, most did in her position. And then, she smiles, a strange sort of happiness emanating from her very being. “Does that make us lost, not dead?”

“We could be dead, too, no one’s stopping us.” He takes the tiny rock, rolling it between his index and thumb before he gives it a throw, the two of them are close enough to the edge to see the beginning of its descent beyond the fence - there was a lock upon the iron, but she had broken in from the storage room, so a gate would do nothing to hinder her if she truly wanted to die. “It’s a long enough drop.”

He can tell that she’s struggling, maybe thinking of reasons why she shouldn’t agree with him, or maybe reasons as to why she should - he isn’t able to read her. He forgets to ask, too, to pry for answers that he probably didn’t want to know about - like how and when and why her slice of insanity came about or why she was taking so long to respond to his  _‘sort of’_  joke. His thoughts were all too selfish, too unrefined for her soft words and tastes; the way she wears the overused hospital gown on her shoulders is enough to prove his own lack of composure, so he doesn’t ask and he never will.

Instead, he listens to as much as she wishes to tell and only asks about himself.

“So, who would I be, if you’re the princess?”

Her head tilts slightly, thoughtful as she moves to smooth her hair carefully before curling her hands upon her lap, fingers threading. “I had once thought the hero.”

“Heroes lose everything.” He feels bitter replying, thinking about all of his past failures, every mistake he can never undo.

“You always sound so sure, though. Heroes are nothing if not built upon conviction.” She shivers with the chill and he moves closer to her, if just to allow their shoulders to touch and he realizes then what she means, but it only makes him frown. He feels like he’ll believe whatever she says, though, after a delicate hand covers his own. “I don’t quite fancy the heroes, in any case.”

“Yeah, well, I won’t ever be one.”

He speaks the words and they are like liberation, a slow rise of the heavy weight upon his chest, an understanding that he never was able to grasp before. He knows she is no princess, and he knows she is about as sane as he is, but in that dark light - he thinks her an angel.

She sits under the the mighty hand of Insomnia’s icy chill, a smile on her face as she sighs - not because it is quiet, but because she knows that she has found where she belongs, in a fortress in which she no longer feels she needs saving from.

“Perfect.”

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments keep me writing!
> 
> You can find more of my Final Fantasy works on [Tumblr](http://birdsandivory.tumblr.com).


End file.
